10 ROMANCE OF LOW LIFE AMONGST PLANTS. 



of clusters of pear-shaped cases, attached by the thin 

 end, which spHt when fully ripe, and discharge a brown 

 dust consisting of the minute spores (Fig. i). These 

 are the representatives of the- 

 flowers in flowering plants, and, 

 like them, are the organs of fructifi- 

 cation. The clusters of spore-cases 

 are termed sori, and are covered 

 Fig. I.— Ferns, spore-case, at first, in most instanccs, witli a 



and sperniatozoid. 



thin membrane, but are occasion- 

 ally naked. The form of the spore-cases, as well as 

 their position, varies in the different genera, but their 

 general character and function will be the same, that 

 of receptacles containing the spores, or representa- 

 tives of seeds. We need not say that these clusters 

 of spore-cases are very pretty and instructive objects 

 for the low powers of a microscope. 



The above, then, will be sufficient for the determi- 

 nation of a fern, as distinguished from a flowering 

 plant, although there are other and less important 

 features which could be adduced in corroboration. 

 Suffice it to say that in the germination of the spores, 

 and the development of young plants, there are very 

 important differences from the process of reproduction 

 in flowering plants. In common plants, when the 

 seeds germinate, a short stem is thrust out, bearing 

 one or two seed-leaves, which, although different in 

 form from the succeeding leaves, are true leaves. At 

 the same time a small radicle, or rootlet, proceeds 

 downwards, and a young plant, resembling its parent, 

 has started into existence. In ferns, on the contrary, 

 no such direct evolution takes place, but there is an 



